Tag: animals

Stories

I’m all badger’y

Sonja

Yes, I can honestly say badgers are my ultimate favorite animals. For me it’s hard to choose one, because I’m fond of so many animals like squirrels, hedgehogs, ducks, foxes, sparrows, starlings, many rodents…..I just love animals.

But badgers are ultimate beauties. Their shape and colour, their playful character and little voices. There’s just so much to love about them. Unfortunately there is one downside about these fluff balls, they’re one of the toughest animals to crochet, all thanks to their beautiful striped head. But let’s forget about that for now, I’ll explain all about that and my plans on how to get it right in my next post. Yep, my next project will be a crochet badger pattern. I was going to make an adventurer badger first, but I just can’t wait to make a ‘normal’ badger doll.

Let’s now enjoy badger cuteness with a few pic’s I found online.

Wheeeeee!!!!!

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Badger from The Burrowers

These are both baby badgers. The second picture is from one of the badgers from the BBC program, The Burrowers.

For my smartphone I needed a new fabric case, so I made one with a badger. And….I recently discovered ‘Badger Balm’, how cool is that! It’s an American brand so American badgers, but they’re lovely too. The balms are completely organic and mostly of beeswax and olive oil. I adore the tins and the balms smell delicious.

BadgerB

And here’s something nice to close this post with, a badger painting I made years ago. Badger Castle.

badger illustration

Enjoy and I promise, this week I’ll post a first sketch of my crochet badger and I’ll explain all about the colour changes for this pattern and my vision about it.

 

Patterns

Balloo, crochet sheep pattern

Sonja

My favorite moment of designing crochet patterns is when my new doll is finished and I can take pictures of him. It’s so much fun to do, playing with my fuzzy new friend and I can see the finished project for the first time with a fresh view. After a long time working on a project, I become sort of over-critical and can’t see clearly how it looks anymore. But when the pictures are finished I get all happy and proud.

So, I present Balloo, my crochet sheep pattern. I called him Balloo, because he’s based on sheep from Drenthe and there is a big hurdle of these sheep in the surroundings of the village Balloo, nearby where I live. And actually, Balloo is a crochet lamb, not a sheep yet.

crochet sheep pattern, sheep amigurumi

The Balloo crochet sheep pattern is available in my Ravelry shop, Etsy shop and you can also order the pattern directly from me here. It is written in standard American crochet terms. This crochet sheep is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a 100% yarn. Balloo is 5.6 inch / 14.5 cm when sitting. He’s very soft and cuddly.

The pattern contains a clear and colour coded description of how to crochet and assemble this animal, with extra illustrations and example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the yarn colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make your own fuzzy lamb amigurumi. All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings.

Chit and Chat

Follow the fox

Sonja

cam2-0105For all of you who love foxes:

A webcam positioned in a fox burrow. These foxes live in the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands. It’s a natural area with wetlands and open fields etc. The foxes have cubs and you can see them laying in front of the webcam. You can also hear their sweet little voices. I think it’s an awesome project and it is very interesting to take a peak in the burrow.

The image you see is one of the cubs from two years ago. Follow Flam’s brothers and sisters! (I hope this camera can be viewed international….)

Hurray, it is finally spring!

p.s. My next project will be a sheep or a squirrel, I have to decide which one will be the first. More about that later this week.

Chit and Chat

Wolf

Sonja

Wolf-sketch

Because I wanted Finse to be the top post of my blog for a while, I didn’t post the wolf sketch. But now I only have to finish a few loose ends of the wolf so this seemed the right moment to post the sketch. The wolf is almost ready, needs to be photographed and I have to finish writing the pattern.

It was a bit different to make this wolf, because he’s a bit similar to the fox and I was afraid he would become too much like him. At some point I doubted to make him at all. But because I adored wolfs when I was a teenager and got some request for a wolf pattern, I decided I had to make him anyway. My goal was the make a ‘doll-ish’ wolf like the fox but with wolf proportions. I’ll tell more about him soon!

 

Stories

Doggy sketch

Sonja

I’m celebrating the Christmas holiday and we’re supposed to go hiking in this free period, but the weather isn’t the kind you can enjoy… rain and slippery roads that look like muddy streams, which makes you all blubbery when you walk on them for just two seconds.

Anyway, crocheting gives me much joy too, so I started working on my new pattern, the doggy or ‘hondje’ in Dutch.

He’s not really a specific breed of dog. He looks most like a basset hound or beagle in my colouring, but it isn’t important, he’s just ‘dog’. He’s the kind of stuffed toy you can give to a toddler and he’ll name it doggy, because that’s what he is. Simple and sweet, well, I hope he will be.

Here’s the sketch. Hondje should be able to stand on four paws and can also lay flat on his tummy.

Hondje-w